Shards in a Dustpan
by CrackinAndProudOfIt
Summary: Third Age, LotR-centric drabbles and vignettes from B2MeM12, feature many genres and characters, from Aragorn toward Caradhras, to Frodo post-Quest, to the tragic past of Denethor, to everything before, behind, and in-between! Very bookverse.
1. Caradhras the Cruel

**Bingo #: B14**

**Prompt: snowdrift**

****Cruel mountain, is it true that you smile? There you stand, gloating above us, white snowdrifts glistening in the sun. The wind that formed them has at last quelled its ceaseless whipping; all is still on the Redhorn Pass, quiet and calm after you succeeded in deterring us from crossing it.

If only you had not; if only, if only! Your harshness has trapped me in a position I never desired; I know little more of the road to our destination than those I have suddenly been ordained to lead. I am sure he who suffered most due to your lack of mercy would consider this practice, a simulation for my future as king-

But I am lost, having not his foresight and wisdom, and after Lórien, I know nothing to do but helplessly curse your snow.


	2. An Empty Prison

**Bingo #: I18**

**Prompt: a character with whom you have something in common**

This is a prison. I know it may be difficult to see, for the round windows, the pleasant little patch of garden, the crackling fire with its merry, dancing tongues, but a dungeon of drudgery, of dullness, of dogged deterioration it is, nonetheless. I hate it here; I am so trapped.

How can this be? After all I wanted, all I sacrificed for, was this place: the childhood home that should be filled with rest, healing, and tranquility. To arrive here, only to find it empty, to learn that things can never be the same, is a harder blow than any I have yet taken. I have seen, have done, have suffered too much to find in Bag End, or any of the Shire, the fulfillment I once did. I want to live again. This place's emptiness is more than I can endure.

I am too restless for this stagnant little land and its void corner of our wide world. It would have been better, perhaps, had I never ventured outside its borders, for now that I have tasted the fine delicacy that is life outside of it, quite literally, its familiar cuisine will never again satisfy me. I have been broken, yet somehow my appetite is now insatiable.

There is no way to find my mending by resuming the old life I once had, picking up the book I once was reading yet again, only to start up where I left off. I need to open a new book entirely, flip over a new leaf, for now I know there is no returning. What can follow all I have been through, the bliss, the pain, the sorrow? Nothing.

I suffered, yes, but wounds do not begin to heal because they go untreated, regardless of whether or not one is going to be hurt again: rather they fester. The injury becomes infected and aches worse than it did to begin with, being met with only emptiness, nothing to mar, yes, but nothing to mend.

I want to be free; I cannot go through the meaningless motions of one more day in this meaningless, halfway life. Something has to give.

My hand strays to the fair white gem around my neck. As I finger it, the promise of she who bestowed it upon me returns to my mind, as vividly as on the day she spoke it. If in the Undying Lands there is still no respite, I am lost; I finally decide it: I sail.


	3. He Will Follow

**Bingo #: N31**

**Prompt: first line of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God**

_Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board, _he thought, _but what is a man to make of a ship whose increasing headway carries his beloved forever away from his arms? _

There he stood at Mithlond's greatest quay, beneath the dying rays of Anor, rivulets of tears streaming down his cheeks. He had come alone, thinking to spare his children the agonies of both watching their mother leave them, and an awakened Sea-longing. He had not even told them, an easy feat considering Arwen's residence in Lórien and the twins apparently roaming the Wild in hopes of taking revenge on all Orc-kind for their mother's suffering. He and Galadriel had spoken from afar concerning Celebrían's departure, but his wife's parents, at her own request, had not made the journey with her.

On the one hand, he minded not at all; this was the sort of loss no words of comfort, sure to be given, however grieved also their speaker, could mend. Silence, which he realized with a melancholy matter-of-factness would now be his constant companion, was the only thing that could comfort him even slightly. It seemed somehow to wrap its emptiness around him, allowing his memories, the closest he would again be to her, to be lived again with crystal clarity.

There he stood, reminiscing as he wept into the sea, long after the grey ship was out of sight and the stars had begun to prick heaven's vault. At last, he turned his back to the ocean and made to enter the house of Círdan to take what rest he could.

Fingering Vilya, he knew that, though it could be long before he did so, the anguish he would endure without the hope it gave made up his mind: someday, he sails.


	4. Not Asleep

**Bingo #: N32**

**Prompts: "He sees you when you're sleeping"; grey**

You didn't understand. Who could blame you? You would never have thought that it would come to this; the pallor of death upon your master's face was incomprehensible to you. In my Mirror, you saw only what you wanted.

But here on the rock, beneath the cleft of Torech Ungol, the vision comes to horrendous fulfillment in the grey half-light of the Black Land. All you see is the stillness of his face, its ashen hue, the lividness overcoming his complexion, and the glimpse granted you of your future becomes crystal clear.

"Not asleep, dead," you say, and who am I to correct you? From afar, as I anxiously keep watch over every move of the Ring that was almost mine, all you see is the image in the basin. Neither asleep nor dead: that thought does not even cross your mind, my little gardener.

But you will see, and though foresight may fail all the Wise beneath Mordor's shadows, I know that when you do, the Ringbearer will be in faithful hands.

**Quick A/N:**

**A big thank you to my anonymous reviewers _Lainie _and _yolanda_! Even though you don't (yet?) have accounts, your feedback still means a lot to me. :D**

**To _yolanda_: Thanks for the request! All of these were written back in March, but fortunately- well, you be the judge of that- I do have one about Faramir and Éowyn. However, I decided against posting it on account of severe dislike for it... If you'd still like to see it, though, shoot me another review, and I'll put it up next update. :) Thanks so much!**


	5. The Enemy

**Bingo #: I22**

**Prompts: Celeborn/Galadriel; a character you dislike- What might you have in common?**

The enemy had invaded, or so Celeborn perceived it. To see the Dwarf even standing in his hall, much less sweet-talking his wife, was almost more than he could bear. It was the slaying of Thingol his kinsman all over again; he knew better than to house any- not even one- of the Naugrim. It was nothing short of suicide, warned every distrustful instinct within him. When he looked upon that stubborn, arrogant, foolish Dwarf, all he saw was a violent murderer, a ticking timer whose hour of count down would end suddenly, allowing come-what-may to occur.

But he was not afraid, he told himself, and, verily, he was not. It was the anger that drove these feelings: anger for the murders of Thingol and many others he and Galadriel had known and loved. From it sprang an unquenchable thirst for the sweet revenge the Sindar had never personally tasted against the thieving, ravaging, bloodthirsty Naugrim. Even in his own tranquil hall, with the stars above and the peaceful silver lamps about, the fragrance of _mallorn_ in the air, with his people, with almost seven thousand years and countless generations of Naugrim between Gimli Glóin's son and the heinous treachery in Doriath, the thought made his blood boil.

Almost, he called out to express a change in his decree; almost, he ordered the Dwarf not only banished but executed. And then he heard Galadriel's kind words to that very creature. What had gotten into her? Had she completely forgotten her own history?

_No, _thought Celeborn, mentally answering his own salvo of indignant questions, _she has forgiven. _And if Galadriel, this coldest, proudest, most powerful _Noldorin _princess could learn to do so, he could as well.


	6. The Treegarth of Orthanc

**Bingo #: N36**

**Prompt: green**

He inhales; there is nothing that can compare with the aroma of the beeches in leaf, the dogwoods in blossom, the green creeping back to the oak's ancient boughs. What once was the funeral pyre of these very trees' kin has become a silvan paradise.

But he remembers. Though the earth itself, rent and wounded as it had been with the pockmarks of industrial caverns, may begin to forget, healed by the gentle roots of the orchard he beseeched now so long ago to dwell there, he will never allow himself to unlearn all that occurred so that this vale could have peace once more.

Beautiful, natural, tranquil, free: the Tree-garth of Orthanc.


	7. A Different Sky

**Bingo #: B10**

**Prompts: sky blue; "over the river and through the woods"**

Not in his wildest fantasies, not in his most terrifying nightmares, had Sam Gamgee ever dreamed this sort of adventure would befall him. Gamgees didn't even cross the Water if they could help it, much less the distant River- clear on the edge of tidings from the other Farthings!- but Sam had done both in but a few days' time.

Now he found himself in the dead-center of the Old Forest, the very last place on earth he had thought this exciting new journey to lead him. As he sat resting near this strange, muddy river that Mr. Merry had called the Withywindle, he glanced up at the clear, blue, picture-perfect autumn sky above his head; it seemed somehow that it should be different here than it had been all the days of his youth in what now seemed as far off as another life entirely.

It was, and it wasn't, and Sam felt with a sudden profundity that if the sky was different now, it would change many times more ere this adventure had ended.


	8. By the Ocean

**Bingo #: O67Prompts: Faramir/Eowyn; sea birds**  
**yolanda: Here's for you!**

Anor cast her last golden rays west out over Endor, sent them glinting off the coast's gently falling waves. The white sand of the beach at Dol Amroth was imprinted by the footprints of the two lovers. The night was warm even for spring, and the horde of gulls soaring above the water made their harsh cries to their fellows in the colony below.

To some, the incessant cawing may have been a nuisance, but nothing could dampen the glad spirits of the couple. Imrahil of Dol Amroth had welcomed to his halls his newlywed kinsman and his bride, and now the pair strolled along the beach in a companionable, reflective silence. Their fingers ere entwined as each held the other's hand. Suddenly, the man squeezed the woman's and she smiled up at him, pressing her head to his chest. He ran his other hand through her golden hair.

"I love you," she said simply.

"I love you more," he answered.


	9. Her Dock

**Bingo #: B6**

**Prompts: Denethor/Finduilas; dock/quay**

It was here that they had met, and now, as Denethor found himself retracing her gentle footsteps on that day so long ago, the ancient dock felt so worthless without her presence. He remembered their first introduction, when he had wandered onto the quay, only to be told by the ocean-eyed beauty that this was _her _dock.

How could he forget the next visit, how surreal it had seemed as they walked this same expanse with hands entwined? Her laughter was like wine, making the couple merrier and merrier until it seemed for once to Denethor that the whole world smiled upon him, and that all was right.

They had been upon this very dock in the sunset, with only the softly crashing waves for an audience, when he knelt before her and proposed that they wed. To see the smile on her face when she said yes, all creation must have sung for joy.

Until this last month, though, they had never returned to the dock, the beach, the sea, where their love had been sown, had taken root, had blossomed and grown. The busy life of the Lord and Lady of Gondor had left the couple little opportunity for the seaside vacations Finduilas so desired. It was not until it was too late- she was too ill to enjoy it- that they had made the journey again: so that she could die in the place she loved best.

He had meant tonight, carry her though he would have to, to take her here for one final stroll down the memory-filled pier. He should have done it the day they arrived, for even as he entered the room, heart breaking for the thousandth time to see her lying so frail and helpless in that bed, she was stolen from him forever.


End file.
